


Error: PL3453 54V3M3

by HelixDraxzonyx



Series: HelixDraxzonyx's Horror Shorts Collection [4]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-25
Updated: 2019-11-25
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:00:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21557434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HelixDraxzonyx/pseuds/HelixDraxzonyx
Summary: After the world's greatest gamer goes missing, a friend of theirs makes a shocking discovery about the fate of the missing person.
Series: HelixDraxzonyx's Horror Shorts Collection [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1547110
Kudos: 1





	Error: PL3453 54V3M3

_The following account is the first case that I worked on with The Institute, albeit in an Observational Role, once I had completed all 316 basic training modules and passed 50 Combat Simulations, as required by The Institute before being cleared for field work. The case details a Category 10 Man-made Inconvenience, one of the simplest and least harmful cases that The Institute has ever responded to, and yet the undertones of the account were far more sinister than the classification would suggest. The account begins with the following post to an online forum._

My name is Jake Smith, but you guys are probably more familiar with my gamer tag: 0taku_5masher. I've been playing all kinds of games since I was a kid, and never did I encounter anything weird, until recently. Everyone's been talking about the disappearance of w33btr0n1c_888, not surprising given that he's the most skilled and most famous gamer in the world, but what I've heard so far is nowhere close to the truth. He isn't sick, or banned, or dead. Not yet anyway, but I fear he soon will be. Some of you already know that I occasionally team up with him, and that we talk and hang out offline. The last time I saw him IRL, was about a month ago.

We had gone out to celebrate a recent victory we'd worked together to achieve. We were still exhausted from gaming for nearly 60 hours straight, but we still found the energy to celebrate. I mean, have you ever known w33b to get exhausted ever? I know I haven't. Anyway, during the celebrations, we got to talking about Death Stalker Online. You know, that new team-only game the developers insist couldn't possibly be completed by anything less than a raid group? Well, I joked to w33b that it sounded like they were daring him to try and solo the game, and w33b laughed about that. “Well, if they want to challenge me to solo it, then challenge accepted!” You all know this isn't the first time developers have made claims like that. You all know that a lot of developers are pissed with w33b for thrashing their games. I've always thought that was stupid logic. There's always going to be someone like w33b who can do things like that. Why bother devoting all your energy to thwarting one guy when you could focus on making the game enjoyable and challenging for millions? I don't really get it, but it seems a lot of developers were obsessed with getting one-up on w33b.

That was the last time I saw him IRL, but I was still in contact with him, until about 2 days before DSO went live. He just vanished quite suddenly, and wasn't responding to my messages. I didn't think much of it at first. It's happened before, especially when he goes so long without sleep. Sometimes he'll kinda hibernate for a couple days to catch up on sleep again. But then those two days turned into two weeks. I'd already started playing DSO myself. I'm starting to think the developers may have been right about their claims this time around. DSO is brutal, but I've been okay playing solo so far. That's when things started getting weird.

I found my way to a castle in the game. While exploring the castle, I came across a strangely empty chamber. No, I'm not being paranoid. Some of you probably know the chamber I'm talking about. When you play games long enough, you know what to expect based on the design of the area, you pick up on things that tell you if an area should have monsters even before they spawn in. This chamber should have been the site of some treasure, probably guarded by a swarm of monsters, or maybe a mini boss. When you go into it though, there's just nothing there. The game twitches a little when you enter, like it wants to load an encounter but nothing appears. Just an empty chamber with two statues on the back wall. I went looking around for a hidden switch or something. When I tried interacting with the left-hand statue, I got an error message on the screen. It read “Error: PL3453 54V3M3.” I looked at the message in confusion, closed it, but nothing else seemed to happen. I tried interacting with the statue again, but nothing happened. I figured I might have just been seeing things because I was tired. That's when I noticed the little placard on the statue, which said “Idol of Arrogance.” 

I thought nothing of it at the time, went back to exploring the castle. Later I came back to the statue, tried interacting, but again nothing happened. Fast forward to the next day. I find myself back at the castle. Back at the empty chamber. I walk up to the statue on the left. “Error: PL3453 54V3M3.” I'd convinced myself that what I'd seen the day before was a hallucination, maybe caused by sleep deprivation, but this time I was well rested. I saw it again. I wasn't hallucinating. There was one more thing I noticed this time: a sound accompanied the error message. The closest I can think of to describe it is a kind of electronic groan. Like one of those alien masks that changes your voice. Imagine groaning into one of those for about half a second, and that's more or less what I heard. I tried interacting again, and once again nothing happened. I spent about a week after then trying to figure out what the error message meant. Towards the end of the week, I came up with a theory: that the message appeared at certain intervals. It took two days of testing to confirm it. The error message appeared every 14 hours and 48 minutes. Every time, I heard the sound. There was something nagging me in the back of my head, something my mind felt was important about the length of the intervals, but it wasn't until today that I figured it out.

I went into the game again today. Went back to the castle, back to the statue. The same error message. The same sound. Then something clicked in my mind. 14 hours and 48 minutes could also be written as 888 minutes. 888. As in, w33btr0n1c_888. I know, it sounds crazy, but there's more. I was in a cold sweat already, but then I activated the in-game voice chat feature, set it to local, and spoke to the statue. 

“w33b... is that you?” The sound repeated itself, but what came next sent a chill through my spine.

“Save... me. Please... save me.” For a moment, I thought my heart had stopped beating. It was w33b's voice. I've heard it more than enough to recognise it anywhere, and it was coming from the statue. Right after this was the forced logout. The developers are saying they found some kind of serious bug, but I think they're lying. I think they realised I found w33b, and now they're trying to cover it up. What do I do? Who do I tell about this?

_Within five minutes of this post being uploaded, 0taku_5masher had received a number of critical replies, insults and accusations of trolling mostly. Amongst those replies though, was one which read “We will handle it.” The reply was posted by someone with the username “The_Institute”. A week later, 0taku_5masher posted an update to the forum._

So, most of you are wondering what happened to Death Stalker Online, wondering why it suddenly shut down. You all didn't believe me, but it turns out I was right. I don't know how though, I only know what I have been told by someone with the username “The_Institute”. They told me that they had raided the DSO studio, and stopped them from deleting the statue I've spoken of from the game. They say that they have recovered w33btr0n1c_888 and that he is undergoing rehabilitation. The developers were arrested and taken into custody. I tried to find out more than this, but “The_Institute” keeps telling me that the answers I seek are classified, so this is all I know right now. Whether or not w33b will be able to add to this, I just don't know.

_This post from 0taku_5masher received less criticism than the first. The other users had seen “The_Institute” declaring its intention to get involved. So, now to fill in the gaps. I was partnered with another Operative, codenamed Inari, as Orion was occupied with engaging an alien armada at the time, though it would transpire that he would deal with it quicker than expected. Inari was the one who informed 0taku_5masher that we would intervene, before we raided the DSO studio. Inari has... a no-nonsense way of tackling problems, so the studio's security was powerless to resist her. We apprehended the development staff and took possession of the studio's equipment. Amongst the inventory was an artefact that was very definitely out of place. About 163 million light years out of place. Inari and I took the artefact, and the development staff, back to The Institute, while a clean-up crew took care of the studio itself._

_Upon returning to The Institute, we were greeted by Orion, who was interested in how my first assignment went, and even more interested in the alien artefact. The technology belongs to an alien race we've dealt with before, so we were familiar with it, and the language contained within. Deciphering the device was simple, therefore. Contained within, was w33btr0n1c_888. His entire body, mind, and soul had been converted to data and stored within the device. From there, he had been implemented into DSO as an in-game object, the Idol of Arrogance. The development staff had vowed not to testify under interrogation without their lawyers. Not an effective threat to make against Orion, given that he possesses Telepathy. Extracting the truth took no time at all. The lead developer had found the alien artefact, and through a series of dreams, or what he had believed to be dreams, had learned how to use it. He and many other of his staff were sick of w33btr0n1c and so decided to take him out of the picture, by transforming him into a game object. When they discovered that someone knew where w33btr0n1c was, they panicked and planned to delete him, but they were dealing with technology they didn't fully understand, and were thwarted by The Institute before they could figure out what to do._

_Some of the development staff were innocent, so they were released and returned home, once they'd had their memories of The Institute erased of course. The guilty personnel have been detained and remain in custody. The artefact has been destroyed, and a message has been sent to the species who created it and sent it to our planet: “Play pranks upon this planet again, and you will have to answer to Orion.” The threat seems to have been effective against them, as they have sent ambassadors to Earth to negotiate a Non-Aggression Pact with The Institute. Frederick Han-Goe, better known as w33btr0n1c_888 has since made a full recovery from his ordeal, though he has no memories of what happened, or of The Institute. He believes that he had slipped into a coma as a result of placing his body under strain from excessive gaming. Jake Smith, aka 0taku_5masher, has been encouraged to play along with this explanation, despite what he has posted online._

_Category 10 incidents are almost never undertaken by The Institute as there are a number of other agencies equally capable of handling it, but it happens. While this one ended well, I can't help but question if this is really the end. Anger, ambition, jealousy, greed. These are Human poisons that can cause devastation even using Human technology. Sadly, alien technology has a nasty habit of arriving here quite frequently as well. There are countless rifts spread throughout the universe. Technology falls into these rifts all the time. Some drift in space for millennia before being pulled in by a planet's gravity. Then there are the artefacts that are sent to Earth deliberately. Some, like this incident, are intended purely for mischief. Others, for a much more malicious purpose. The damage they can do depends upon what they are and on who finds them. The Institute usually picks these things up first, but not always. In this incident, we got lucky. It was picked up by a jaded developer with a grudge against a skilled gamer. The next time, it could be a world leader who gets targetted, or a Nobel Prize laureate, and the damage then could be quite dire. I try not to think about this, but the thought always comes back to me. This concludes the account of case file MI10-17783-1._


End file.
